GroupM elevates 2 senior leaders in its Central Trading Group team

Sidharth Parashar has been promoted as Head, Pricing & Investments, while Jai Lala has been made Head, Trading & Partnerships. Both Parashar & Lala will report to Prasanth Kumar, Managing Partner, CTG, South Asia

GroupM has announced the promotion of two of its senior executives of the Central Trading Group (CTG). The company has elevated Sidharth Parashar as Head, Pricing & Investments, and Jai Lala as Head, Trading & Partnerships. Both Parashar and Lala will report to Prasanth Kumar, Managing Partner, CTG, South Asia.

Prior to his promotion, Parashar was Agency Buying Head for Maxus for over five years, where he was a member of the leadership team, working on media mandates for brands such as Google, Nokia, and Vodafone, to name a few. In his new role, Parashar will be responsible for facilitating and executing GroupM investment mandates across media. His key focus will be on the GroupM trading products that should continue to offer the edge to our clients. All the GroupM Agency Trading Heads and cluster heads will now report to Parashar.

Prior to his elevation, Lala was Agency Trading Head for Mindshare, where he worked on media mandates for clients such as Pepsi, GlaxoSmithkline, ICICI, Aditya Birla Group and Nike. Going forward, he will be managing all trading mandates at GroupM. He will also be heading a team of all the heads across verticals: Proprietary media, DTH, Xaxis, Syndication, GME and Special projects. He will also work closely with Parashar and the agency trading heads on delivering the maximum ROI on media investments.

Speaking on the new structure, Prasanth Kumar, Managing Partner, South Asia, CTG said, “As we move into a growth phase largely driven by converging synergies across the group and driving client satisfaction, it has become critical that we create more focus, especially in the area of media investment. With the development of new concepts of integrated media, merging traditional and digital media, we are also looking at reforming the way we plan our investments as a central hub. This new structure in our core function will deliver unparalleled client delight and value.”